| Monte Carlo or Bust | |
|---|---|
US Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Ken Annakin |
| Produced by | Ken Annakin |
| Written by | Ken Annakin Jack Davies |
| Starring | Tony Curtis Bourvil Lando Buzzanca Walter Chiari Peter Cook |
| Music by | Ron Goodwin |
| Cinematography | Bertil Palmgren Gábor Pogány Walter Wottitz |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 1969 |
| Running time | 122 min. (US) |
| Country | United Kingdom / France / Italy |
| Language | English |
Monte Carlo or Bust is a 1969 comedy film. The story is based on the Monte Carlo Rally - first raced in 1911 - and the film recalls this general era, set in the 1920s. The film is a British/French/Italian co-production, and was released in the United States under the title Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies. The animation in the film, 'big, bold, slapdash', was the work of Ronald Searle.
The film is a big lavish all-star film, (Paramount put $10 million into the film), [1] a comedy caper, an epic car rally across Europe that involves a lot of eccentric characters from all over the world who will stop at nothing to win.
The film is a sequel to the 1965 hit Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines. Like the earlier film, it was written by Ken Annakin and Jack Davies and directed by Annakin, with music by Ron Goodwin. Some of the cast from the first film also returned, including Gert Fröbe, Eric Sykes and Terry-Thomas; the latter appeared as the equally dastardly son of the character he had played in the earlier film. Tony Curtis and Susan Hampshire played other contestants in the race.
The film was originally intended to be called Monte Carlo and All That Jazz. The American distributors Paramount Pictures re-titled it Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies in order to tie it to Annakin's 1965 film.
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In the opinion of the writer Matthew Sweet, Peter Cook (as Major Dawlish), and Dudley Moore, (Barrington), are the performers who have the humour in the film that survives best. It is the send-up of Empire, " which is very 1960s and not far from the sort of thing they would have been doing in The Establishment Club in Soho a few years earlier, where really for the first time, these upper-class stereotypes had been sent up with a vein of cruelty as well as a vein of affection. I think you can see it as a kind of post-Empire film." Cook and Moore play the representatives of Empire:
Peter Cook's Major Dawlish is the creator of a series of fairly ludicrous inventions - the feeling hovers "that it might be all over for Britain." [2]